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The Analog Thing: Analog Computing for the Future

(the-analog-thing.org)
108 points cgeier | 9 comments | 19 Nov 24 17:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.417s | source | bottom
1. szvsw ◴[19 Nov 24 18:02 UTC] No.42186373[source]▶
There’s no better introduction to signals and systems than a modular synthesizer IMO - the combination of tactility and audibility for multi-sensory learning is so great at building intuition - and more importantly, excitement! - for signal processing.

This looks like a cool project in the same spirit!

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2. omani ◴[19 Nov 24 18:37 UTC] No.42186714[source]▶
I agree. I highly recommend [0] Moritz Klein's channel. amazing explanations and learning effect.

[0] https://youtube.com/@MoritzKlein0/videos

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3. ObscureScience ◴[19 Nov 24 18:53 UTC] No.42186859[source]▶
Cool, I was thinking about the other way around, using an analog computer to build synthesizers.
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4. youngtaff ◴[19 Nov 24 21:48 UTC] No.42188460[source]▶
This fella is using it as part of his music making https://www.instagram.com/stephano.music/
5. Optimal_Persona ◴[20 Nov 24 00:15 UTC] No.42189497[source]▶
I was going to say the same - does this follow 1V/octave standard, and is this available in Eurorack format? ;-)
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6. immmmmm ◴[20 Nov 24 05:48 UTC] No.42191127[source]▶
As someone that has been in the synth diy world for a quarter of century, I couldn’t agree more!
7. dreamcompiler ◴[20 Nov 24 13:00 UTC] No.42193555[source]▶
You can do that but it's kind of overkill. With analog computing you think in the time domain with differential equations, and accuracy is more important than speed.

With synthesizers you think mostly in the frequency domain and speed is more important than accuracy. Integrators from AC become lowpass filters, adders become mixers*, multipliers become ring modulators, etc.

* In audio, a "mixer" is an adder. In RF a mixer is a multiplier.

8. pglevy ◴[20 Nov 24 13:02 UTC] No.42193568[source]▶
Just previewed the hi-hat from scratch vid. This channel looks great. Thanks for sharing!
9. vegadw ◴[20 Nov 24 22:28 UTC] No.42198788[source]▶
https://the-analog-thing.org/wiki/FAQ_Synthesizers

TL;DR: No.

I looked into it hook one up to my rack and ultimately decided that even with the high price of euro modules it's still not really sensible/useful for what it includes. There's a lot of more useful modules you can try the same vibe with for euro though.

For analog logic, Maths from Make Noise is the obvious. ANA from Mystic Circuits is pretty neat too.

For digital logic (Combining both types of logic is very fun IMHO) O_c (or uO_c) running hemisphers has a mode to construct complex logic gate changes in the module, which can be fun.

Also, consider that a LPF is effectively an integrator and a HPF a differentiator and you already have 90% of it already, probably.